I guess most of you know by now that the two-week Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change or COP15 in short has begun yesterday.
This blog post is about why this summit is so important for the concept of Sustainability and three possible impacts on Sustainability if a deal is made or not. This is purely my opinion of course, but I believe that we are at a decisive point in time now. Not only with regards to tackling Climate Change but also with regards to credibility and support for the concept of Sustainability as a whole.
Importance for Sustainability
We are living in an unsustainable way. There is enough evidence that supports this. However Climate Change is by far the biggest threat to life on this planet and to us. Climate Change is one key aspect of the concept of Sustainability. If we can stop our planet from warming then we are well on our road to living sustainable, ie. living in harmony with our planets resources and wild life. This is the definition of Sustainability if you want to dive deeper into this subject.
COP15 – At the crossroads
We have two possible roads to follow now after Copenhagen. 1) We can make a deal that will change the way we will tackle Climate Change now and in the future or 2) we will fail to make a deal and need to live with the consequences in the years to come, knowing that we could have changed something but did not manage to agree.
How the face of Sustainability can change if a deal is made:
- Increased Credibility: The concept of Sustainability will have gained credibility and its critics will have sen that we can make change happen.
- Sustainability Institutionalized: Possible legislation to tackle rising global temperatures that will lead to a change in our climate in the long term will have been introduced. I know that there are a lot of skeptics with regards to mandatory legislation. The reality unfortunately is that most organizations will not change their ways significantly without mandatory legislation.
- Motivation: The motivation to make even more progress. A positive experience and feeling that we pulled ourselves together and got over our egos for the greater good is often underestimated and essential for future success.
What will be the impact if a deal is not made:
- Believability: The Sustainability movement will have lost credibility. Maybe even beyond repair.
- Encouraging the Skeptics: Climate Change skeptics and denouncers will feel encouraged and get an even larger audience despite the damning facts and science about Climate Change.
- An Uncertain Future: We are in deep trouble because we have lost the biggest and best chance to change our ways of limiting our carbon emissions. Just imagine how long and how much work it took to get everyone to the COP15 and this close to agreeing a common goal. The future will be very uncertain going forwards.
This is OUR opportunity to change the way we take care of our planet and make smart climate decisions for a change. Will we choose to evolve in order to make smarter decisions for the future of our children or are we going to be the old selfish short term sighted humans that we currently are?
We have a decision to make and the time is now. And in my view this is not only about Climate Change but Sustainability as a whole.